


She doesn't care.

by PlumeBluue



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Also I have no clue how hacks and codes work, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, I'm sorry it's so short, Leotilda, Mattie at the rescue, but hey, ehhh, i don't really know where this is going, i'm kind of going deus ex machina there, mattie's gotta save the situation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumeBluue/pseuds/PlumeBluue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mattie doesn't care. She just wants to do her job well. And that means that she has to save people (it must be written somewhere in the ethical rules of the headcracker path, right?).<br/>She doesn't care at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She doesn't care.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to tumblr user Penndragon for beta-ing me on this thing <3 also guys just start writing fanfictions we're severely lacking of them !  
> Please be aware that this is only my second fanfiction written in english and that I still have much to learn. I'm so terribly sorry if it's not good. I just gotta start somewhere.

It’s not that she should care that much, or that she cares at all, actually.

  
The whole situation is just so different from what she’s been made to expect from this life society’s brought her in. It is different, exciting, and, finally, challenging. There is something feisty, almost unreal, in using her talents in something that isn’t pranks directed at authority or research in the depths of the web. It is useful. Those past two weeks have been filled with wonder and speculation over things set in reality and not the one she has made up in her mind. Two weeks that have let no place for her hate-fuelling existential crisis. Almost like in a movie – enquiries, discoveries, deductions and new acquaintances – original, spectacular and inspiring acquaintances.

  
She doesn’t care that much about them, or for anything that doesn’t concern directly her newfound well-being. She doesn’t care that much about Max, or Leo. She just wonders at the situation, explores the probabilities and calculates statistics that would explain probable futures, almost all of which don’t turn out that well.

  
She doesn’t care that much, then; but if she has this new thing, this new job, then she bloody well is going to make it right.

  
It is not because she cares that she changes Max’s core in order to place a tracking code in his messy data – and she does not care when she finds a way to enter Leo’s personal computer processor and inserts it as a primitive virus. She freaks out when Leo leans in, just to get something from the table, but she thinks it’s to check on her work, and she barely has time to switch her windows back to her own crack as she babbles that she has some difficulty on a random line of code - which is actually true.

  
Leo points at the solution, and, ashamed, she mumbles an apology with an unusual, self-depreciating comment:

  
“Sorry, I’m stupid.”

  
And she definitely does not care when he says that no, she is not, and the way he smiles, as if he’s not used to it, one corner of his mouth curving higher than the other, and eyes quite unfocused, as if he doesn’t know which way to look at after such a display of human appreciation, feels nice.

  
Not that she cares if he likes her. But she seems to care about what he might think of her work.  


* * *

  
  
As predicted, this whole situation turns into a nightmare. She yells for them until the synths are dragged outside and cuffed into police cars.

  
Cuffed, brutalized and taken away from their freedom.

  
Just like humans.  


* * *

  
  
It is not over from them. Her sister is left in the charge of her mum, and they are the only ones allowed to have a decent cell. They are all taken into custody until said otherwise. Mattie doesn’t say a thing. Mum told her not to. She doesn’t know what to do, how she can possibly be okay if she remains silent at interrogations. But her mother knows best, she has to remember. She’s a lawyer. She knows those things. It is possibly the first time in years that Mattie finds herself in a situation where she knows less than her mother.

  
They are free to go late in the night. All of them are asked to sign some kind of non-disclosure contract. They are forbidden to talk of Mia, Leo, and the others to anyone. A cab drives them home.

  
They remain silent. Her mother sobs quietly. Mattie doesn’t miss her father and mother’s joined hands. In the end, it would seem that Mia fixed their relationship after her other personality almost destroyed it.

  
She goes straight back to her room. She is burning with anger. Knowing the existence of the impending doom threatening her mission does not reduce those violent outbursts of rage that make her hands shake. She opens her computer, enables the trackers, searches for them, praying for Max not to have died yet. She finds the coordinates – google maps informs her that they have been sent in the middle of nowhere. This can only mean secret experimentations. Or… maybe not, actually. The address indicates a Synth manufacture.

  
That, she might – maybe -

  
She stops in her thoughts, lifts up her head, bites her lip as she tries to sum up influences and consequences, if it would be proportional to the cause, if it would be possible. Not at all. And she doesn’t care, or does she? Maybe a little. Maybe enough for her to stop as she gets to the bathroom when she sees the folded towel Leo has left behind, next to his forgotten shirt.

  
She doesn’t know yet what she has to do. Hands still shaking, maybe not from anger this time, she brings it up, slowly, to her chest. Maybe it will help her see clearer.  
“You cannot count on the parents this time.” Toby says from behind her.

  
She jumps, scared out of her mind. It is comprehensible. The events of the day have been hard on everyone. She hides the shirt behind her back, as if caught on doing something wrong. But she wasn’t - she doesn’t care. She was just thinking.

  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she blurts.

  
“You want to help them.” Toby retorts.

  
He looks pale and tired. His hair is sticking out on all directions. It seems out of place, to see him like this. Her little brother had always had pink on his cheeks, as if constantly caught on the act of thinking of something too powerful for his feelings to cope with.

  
Mattie sighs. “I don’t – I know where they are. I had the feeling that something like that would happen. I put something on them, so that I could help them if need be. But…”

  
“Mom and dad won’t let us.”

  
“I know.” She drops the plaid on ground, goes to the sink and grabs the toothpaste. “What do you mean, us?”

  
She glances at his reflection in the mirror, and there it is, the pink on his cheeks. She sighs.

  
“Toby, you can’t just – it’s not real. It’s not your place to -”

  
“Oh, cut it, Mattie. It’s not – not your business, okay ? I just – you know, want to help. ”

  
“They’re dangerous.” Mattie says, toothbrush in her mouth, eyebrows frowning at her brother.

  
“Doesn’t stop you from wanting to help, does it?”

  
He’s right. This hasn’t stopped her from the very beginning. Well, quite the very beginning. Before, she had been too creeped out by Leo to really accept any kind of involvement.

  
“Yeah.” She spits out the toothpaste. “Yeah.”


End file.
